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Following a hasty exit from the stage after clinching the Best Original Song award for “Golden,” the creators behind KPop Demon Hunters were given a chance to complete their acceptance speeches backstage, much to the delight of their fans.
If you missed the ceremony, during the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, Ejae and Mark Sonnenblick, accompanied by their fellow producers, ascended the stage to celebrate their win for “Golden.” However, their moment was cut short after a brief comment from Ejae—who co-authored the song and lends her voice to Rumi in the popular movie—when the Oscars ushered them off in favor of more comedic segments from host Conan O’Brien. This decision sparked significant backlash on social media, with fans expressing their discontent at the Academy’s prioritization of humor over heartfelt moments.
Fortunately, while speaking with reporters backstage about their groundbreaking achievement, the team was prompted to address the abrupt cutoff and allowed to extend their gratitude, a gesture that fans quickly applauded online.
“I’m relieved they were able to complete their acknowledgments. The Oscars really dropped the ball there,” one Reddit user commented beneath a video of the winners’ interview.
“Happy they discussed the sudden cutoff! They deserved more time,” another fan remarked on YouTube.
“Thank the heavens they finished their speech here. The cutoff was the singular bad thing about an otherwise ecstatic, historic and extremely joyful win,” another wrote.
While KPop Demon Hunters had already won the award for Best Animated Feature Film by the time that Best Original Song came around towards the end of the night, many at home were excited to see Ejae and crew accept the award after having heard their song countless times over the past year or so since the film released. Since premiering on Netflix in 2025, the movie has become the most watched film on the platform while “Golden” has remained on the charts similarly alongside other songs from the movie.
For that reason, fans were waiting impatiently to see what the songwriting and producing team had to say about the win — which becomes the first KPop song to ever win an Oscar — only for the Oscars to dramatically turn up the music and zoom out to cut away. It was a shocking moment that made some at home question what they were seeing.
While the Academy has been known in the past to play off winners who have not gotten through their speeches or let other members of the team onstage speak, the loud and sudden playing of the music and the cut away took many by surprise to say the least.
“Starting the orchestra full blast instead of slowly playing them off was pretty nasty work,” one person commented on social media.
In the end, the entire group got the chance to share their thanks and finish their speeches backstage, with Ejae giving love to Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, who lend their singing voices to Mira and Zoey for the movie. “I needed to thank them on stage and I didn’t get to ’cause they just cut us off but I wanted to thank Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna, they killed it with their singing and they’re just incredible people. I love them so much.”
Meanwhile, Yu Han Lee used the opportunity to thank their families, saying, “this is an incredible honor,” as Sonnenblick shouted out his own husband, family, and the fans.
“Everybody who worked on this movie, all the animators, it was a real collaboration across the board. It’s a movie where part of the movie is about looking at someone you’ve been taught to hate and to fear and starting to trust, maybe even love them, and that’s part of what the movie is about,” said Sonneblick. “It’s not ‘I’m going up, up, up,’ it’s ‘we’re going up, up, up,’ and that’s part of the reason we’re on stage right now.”
Check out the full backstage interview with Ejae, Sonnenblick, and the rest of the Oscar-winning team behind “Golden” in the player below:
KPop Demon Hunters is now streaming on Netflix.
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